I've been eating reasonably well yesterday and today (except that I did eat chips yesterday, which wasn't good). Scale registers 175, which is down a pound, but that could just be normal variation. Let's see how that plays out over the rest of the week. Really, I'm frustrated that I'm having to re-lose the ten pounds that I lost and gained back over the holidays and not feeling good about myself.

I think I'm tired from the running over the past few days or something because my whole body is sore. Either that or I'm just depressed about my dissolving marriage and my body's holding tension. So, today's been relatively inactive -- reading a book, taking a nap, catching up on emails, and I've got a chapter to work on tonight.

I had toast and fruit and pistachios, and coffee and I don't feel like eating anything else, but I probably should. Ugh. Not too motivated today.

Really, I'm frustrated that I'm having to re-lose the ten pounds that I lost and gained back over the holidays and not feeling good about myself.

I had toast and fruit and pistachios, and coffee and I don't feel like eating anything else, but I probably should. Ugh. Not too motivated today.

Yep, the same for me. I also have to re-lose my weight. This summer I lost quite a few pounds, I weighed 126.8 lbs (and was first around 137 lbs too). And now I have to lose all that weight again >.< Sometimes I feel really unmotivated to lose weight when I think about that. But no matter what, we can't give up! (:

Well, if you don't feel like eating anything else, I think you shouldn't force yourself. If only I felt like that more often I would lose weight more easily. But maybe I'm wrong, so do what you feel that is the best for yourself!

Damiilya -- I ended up eating a little bit of chicken and pasta, just some microwave thing. I agree with you about not eating when I don't feel like it, except that for the past few months, I haven't wanted to eat or do much of anything at all and by forcing myself to have something, I'm trying to counterbalance the emotional with the logical. I'm only trying this to sort of un-program myself about the emotional eating/not-eating cycle, but generally I agree that we should not eat when our bodies don't want it, because at the end of the day it's calories in vs calories out, right?

I'm sorry you're in the same situation of having to re-lose previously lost and gained weight, but, I suppose we all have that at some point and we just have to keep our spirits up and not be defeated....

I'm feeling a little more motivated today, but I'm not sure if I'll have time for a walk because I overslept and now it's too hot outside. So, we'll see how the day progresses. I fell asleep at like 5am and woke up at about 9am and I feel unsettled, but I'm going to have a small breakfast and try doing some sit-ups and push-ups and things like that before I sit down to work today.

I was out of town for a couple of days helping one of my nieces move (niece #3 of 5), and we were so busy I didn't even get online. I also got a lot of exercise carrying boxes to and fro -- both good and bad, b/c of the tendonitis.

NZ, I had knee surgery a couple of years ago and injured one heel while the knee was healing (I think b/c I tried to walk too much too soon and walked funny, compensating for the knee.) After the first one, the second one started to hurt too, but the right heel is still worse.

*sigh* So I'm taking breaks whenever I walk, wearing an orthopedic boot a few hours a day, and icing my heels at least twice a day. *this*is*a*huge*pain*in*the****

I agree about paying attention to what your body wants instead of saying "I should eat because...." AND about re-losing weight! I haven't had to do much of that -- was not really overweight for a long time, then a long slow gain, now losing.

More soon -- lots of catching up to do now that I'm back online! Take care, chickies!

...but generally I agree that we should not eat when our bodies don't want it, because at the end of the day it's calories in vs calories out, right?

I'm feeling a little more motivated today, but I'm not sure if I'll have time for a walk because I overslept and now it's too hot outside.

Yep, you're totally right, calories in vs calories out, hehe (:
Right now I'm really struggling about how many calories I should consume. Because I can't even estimate how many calories I burn throughout the day, every calculator says something else. I think I burn around 2000 calories, as I go to school on the bike, then sit for the most of time and do some exercise at home and sit again (except if I have to work or go out). So I try to consume no more than 1700 calories. But I'm thinking about lowering my consume intake..

And it's hot outside?? It's winter, how can it be hot outside? XD Or am I missing something..

And it's hot outside?? It's winter, how can it be hot outside? XD Or am I missing something..

lol. I'm closer to the equator than you. The weather here is never really cold and sometimes does funny things. Today, it's a little cold though...56 degrees.

I find it difficult to balance calories sometimes. I'm trying to get myself into the habit of being more mindful. I've been making mostly good choices, but still slipping up a bit. I've got a lot of stuff going on in my personal life and I tend to be an emotional eater. Breaking that habit will be hard work, I think. But, I'm being mindful and trying to be careful with my choices.

So far, I've managed a walk every day in recent weeks -- some are longer than others. I've made reasonable choices about food, but I slipped up on a couple of days. I'm going to have to start actually calorie counting and looking for a calculator sometime soon.

neon_zephyr, hahaha, sorry, stupid of me XD I wish it was never cold here, because here in Holland the weather is often sooo depressing, grey clouds, rain, wind and cold =_= But perhaps if it was always sunny here I'd get tired of that too. Variation is good.

Yeah, I'm slipping up a lot of times too, I think a lot of people as well. But even though you find it really difficult, you already lost about 20 lbs! That's a great job, really.

For me calorie counting is the best, I've tried several 'diets', like dukan diet. Gosh, it was horrible for me. After two days of attack phase, my head and my back were hurting and I was really pissed off. But maybe I did something wrong, or I shouldn't of done that at all because I'm still 16 years old and my body still develops itself and blah blah -.-

So I'd say, start counting calories, but don't get too obsessed. Like me, on some days if I eat 100 calories more, I get really upset and start losing all my motivation. But it's still the easiest way for me to lose weight, I eat whatever I want, but still lose weight.

Damiilya, I've never been to Holland. Sounds glamorous to me, cold or not. I think we are often drawn to what we're not used to. I like the weather in Southern California, but I'm a pretty adaptable person and I shape myself into whatever makes sense for my interests, usually.

Good for you that you are working on establishing healthy habits while you are young and keeping in mind that your body is still growing and changing. Trust me, in a few years, everything will change all over again. I miss my 16-year old body...even my 25 year old body; it was easier to lose and gain at that time and now I'm 34 and my body does not want to give up its fat. Grrr. So, I get discouraged, but...discipline is important and I'm trying to re-learn it! Listen to your body and when you're hurting, take the cue to relax and heal a little.

I'm down to 173-174 today, which is good because it's less than before. I don't feel like I've lost anything, yet, but my clothes fit the way I expected them to at this weight. I hope I can lose two pounds next week and maybe if I start exercising more, I can bump it up to three (but, I think that's too optimistic). I think that next week, I'll increase my exercise and start logging/recording my calories. Now that I've gotten myself in a place where I am being mindful and paying attention to what's going on, I think I need to increase my efforts and work a little harder.

Life's going as it goes. Some recent success in my field, some recent sorrows stemming from my broken marriage, but I'm feeling a little stronger and in part, I think that's tied into making an effort on fitness and work despite my desire to avoid and ignore it. Choosing to curb my emotional eating (or at least restricting it to berries and fruit and raw veggies) seems to be helpful in making me feel like I'm in control. So...maybe -2 pounds next week is possible!

Weight loss seems to be happening gradually. I've been sticking to my diet, diet pills, and exercise. I ran yesterday, but didn't get any workout time today.

Family emergency necessitates travel, so tomorrow, I'm mostly going to be traveling. It undoes my entire week's schedule, but I am going to pull an all-nighter to try and finish some work and some packing before travel. I'm extremely worried but trying to tune it out. Stress and worry tend to trigger me overeat, so I will have to be very careful not to give in to that.

I lost 20 pounds from August to October and then regained 11 of those pounds and had to start again, I'm back to 20/21 pounds down and I'm frustrated because I was here in October I could be 40 down but I've gone in the right direction and this time I will give up of course the only difference is I'll get back on it quickly this time I promise!

swissy -- Good Luck! I think sometimes, we make negative progress, but we can always learn from it and move on forward if we keep trying. At least that's what I'm hoping! Hang in there!

I've got a situation on hand at the moment and am offline for a few days, mostly. Things are stressful, to say the least. I plan to be back online in a few days to check in. My diet and exercise plan are failing at the moment, but, sometime, life takes precedence.

Everything in moderation, including moderation. Some days no matter how hard you try and what you want the diet just will not work and dies a horrible screaming death, riding you to the ground with guilt. Don't let it. Yes everyone falls off the wagon sometimes, yesterday walking through the grocery store I smelled pie, and I would have gladly ripped off someones arm and beaten them to death with it to have that pie. I did not break, though there was much drooling and quite a bit of profanity...and I think my resentment of lettuce has gotten a little worse. But the important thing is I survived, and although i may dream of pie for a couple of days, I stuck with it...ok, so I snagged a couple of hershies kisses when I got home, but it was not a faceplant in a pie, so I can live with that.

As for your husband...well, anyone who will blame you for not being able to keep his own pants up is not worth your time, and sure as **** not worth your effort or stress. I know it is hard now, and it will be hard, someone you have spent that much time with is not easy to get over. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. And as much as it hurts, it was a dick move of him to use your weight to justify him being a big slut. If you want to make changes in your life they should be for you, so you will feel better, and so later you can flaunt it and say "yeah you gave this up, feel the burn, ouch!" but that is just the spiteful side of me showing. I have always been too vindictive for my own good.

Best of luck with things and drop me a line...or check out my blog I have on here, it might be something for you to look into doing as well.

Galadreal, your post made me smile. Thanks for the words. I'll check out your blog. I tried one for a while, but recently took down a bunch of the posts. Too much drama surrounding it. I might start up again sometime.

I've been back and forth with life and I'm still hanging out at 174-175 despite not really paying too much attention to calories or exercise for the past couple of weeks. This week, I started counting calories again. I've got an app on my iPhone that lets me keep track of calories in and out. I'm trying to stay at 1000 per day. Today, I'm over by 50, but I have mostly been good about my food choices -- no chocolate, no sugar, few carbs. I'm snacking on fruit and popcorn, which is not too bad. It will take me time to focus in on my 1000 a day goal I think. I function better when I have about 1300, but, as I don't have much time to exercise these days, I'm trying the calorie deficit approach.

I did, however, run for two miles on Thursday and walk a couple of miles on Friday. Today's just been work though. I've got two big deadlines next week and once they're met, I hope to get into more exercise again.

I wanted to post about something that's been bugging me. Comments or advice would be helpful for me to make sense of it.

My weight hasn't gone up or down, but that's because I'm steadily staying at the same calories per day and not increasing exercise and because I've set aside the diet pills for a few days. This isn't bugging me. I know that I'll put more energy into my weight loss efforts once I get through this week's deadline.

The trouble is that I do tend to procrastinate and self-sabotage sometimes and I wonder if that's what I'm doing now by neglecting my diet and the other things in my life that are demanding my attention. My weight is tied into issues of control and so I think I need to make sense of this.

When I allow myself to become fat, I feel a little safer, like I'm armored. It keeps me at a distance from the rest of the world and I can blame my fat for my problems. I know this, so I'm trying to counter it. I started trying to work on my project which is due this week and which I'm afraid won't turn out well, but then I started avoiding it -- reading, drinking coffee, taking time to eat lots of little snacks that are not filling and that take up time to deal with, then eating something carb-heavy to feel less stressed out and then avoiding work. On top of that, going for a walk doesn't clear my head, just makes me more worried, so then I drink more coffee and tea, hoping the ritual will help and it's a big circle that gets me nowhere. Then, I try to bribe myself to stay at my desk and work with candy and chips. Bad. Very bad. I know this. It neither helps the problem, nor helps the weight problem. It's the candy that's the big issue. I will occasionally set aside candy in favor of fruit, but it sounds like I'm dealing with a sugar addiction.

Here's the second part. My marriage fell apart. I still love my estranged husband, I have a tiny sliver of hope left that our yeas together weren't an illusion and he just screwed up and will eventually do right by me and fix it, but 98% of me has lost faith. It's been six months since we separated and he's not remorseful for his behavior. Naturally, people I know (but who don't know me well enough to know what I'm going through) keep trying to set me up with other guys, which isn't really something I'm ready for, even if my EH cheated and abandoned me. I don't like this and I don't like the headspace it puts me in. If I'm tempted to go out with someone out of revenge for his cheating or because it might get me some attention, I feel guilty, or if I feel overly threatened by people suggesting things and don't know if I've done an adequate job or refusing what looks like a better situation than I'm in, I panic; as a result, I eat lots of calories fast (fried things, sugary things). It's kind of like...if I'm fat, people won't pay attention to me and I can be safe to figure out what I want, even safe from my own temptation. I don't think this in the moment, obviously, but, I have noticed the trend in my own behavior. I'm sure my husband doesn't care about me or else he'd be making an effort to fix this, so if I wanted to move on, it wouldn't be a betrayal, but I still love him so I feel guilty thinking this and I'll hide out in my room a lot and just eat chocolate and cry. Then, I think....hmmm, well, I haven't gained any weight so it's not a big deal, but really, I'm just preventing weight loss because I'm kind of afraid, I think. Hiding behind my fat seems to be my way of retreating from the world.

This is messed up. It sounds like some kind of stupid eating disorder or screwed up logic, but....if I don't deal with this, I don't think any weight loss journey will be effective for long because the issue will return.